


how high

by bottomlinsons



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Drug Use, Flirting, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Silly Boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 02:39:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14510721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bottomlinsons/pseuds/bottomlinsons
Summary: Harry's had a bad week. Some weed, McDonald's and the boy with the blue eyes might help.





	how high

**Author's Note:**

> So it's been a while hey. 
> 
> I have recently learned that people who hail from the UK use the phrase 'you alright?' as a greeting. This panics my sorry Austrlian self greatly, and is almost exclusively the reason I wrote this silly little thing. 
> 
> Some other quick notes: 1. This is shorty, very rusty, almost certainly riddled with typos, and very silly. You have been warned. 2. There is about a 50% chance of a follow up, but I make no promises on timelines. As you may already know, I'm not very good with those anyway. 3. My regency fic will definitely be finished, with posting to begin again soon.

******Harry** has lived a lot of weeks.

Not a huge number or anything. He’s not gone and got it in his head that his twenty four years worth of weeks has somehow outpaced the people who’ve got eighty years worth of weeks. He’s just saying twenty four years worth of weeks is a lot, compared to some. How many years has an eight year old lived, for example? Or a sixteen year old? Not nearly _enough_ weeks, is the answer.

That’s not enough weeks to have learnt how to drive a car, or how to lodge a tax return. Harry’s lived enough weeks to know how to do both of those things, thank you very much, and more if you’ll believe it. He’s had enough weeks to save up a proper amount of money, and enough weeks to get on a plane by himself and explore a new country on his own,. He’s also had enough weeks to realise that when you go travelling alone, you run the risk of spending all that special money that you’ve saved, and coming home absolutely bloody skint broke. Of course, this had lead to the short few weeks where he’d lived exclusively off ramen and grated cheese, which lead to the following few weeks of desperately writing a shitty resume at the public library and throwing it at every single shop window he could find so that he could stop exclusively eating ramen and grated cheese and his farts could lose the very distinctive flavour that came with eating only carbs and dairy.

Anyway, the point is, Harry has lived a lot of weeks, and this week has been a particularly shitty one.

He’s curled up on his sofa and the clocks just gone past midnight. It’s chilly in his flat, the weather turned cold enough outside that he’s pulled out his second comforter and chucked it on his bed. He does have a heater, but he’s also got a budget and a fortnightly pay schedule. He’d been paid three days earlier, which of course meant all of the money was gone already and he was relying exclusively on his credit card to get him by. This means of course that he has to stick to his recently realized savings philosophy - the one he’s written in chalk on the blackboard he’s got hanging off the back of his front door.

‘ _STOP SPENDING MONEY AND PUT SOME SOCKS ON, YOU TWAT_ ,’ it tells him sensibly.

He does have his socks on, by the way. It’s important to note that. He’s actually had his socks on since he got home, because he’d been in such a miserable mood that the first thing he’d done when he’d stepped through the door was throw all of his clothes off and pull his favourite pair of fuzzy socks over his toes. It had made him feel immensely better, even if the rest of him was a little nippy. He’d managed to find a good pair of sweatpants in his washing pile a couple of minutes after that, and his electric throw blanket which he’d plugged in to the socket near the couch before wrapping himself up like a caterpillar and face planting into the soft couch cushions.

His work is just so unimaginably shit, is the thing - or, perhaps even worse - it's _imaginably_ shit. All the shitty things that go on at his work are just so tired and cliche that it's almost embarrassing that they're happening in real life. His boss is a misogynist and a little bit of a massive homophobe, his favourite coworker just left and today he’d caught his jeans on a sticky-out bit of wood on one of the cafe tables and torn a massive hole in his favourite jeans. To make things worse, it's all shit he can't do anything about as well, it’s just shit that he has to put up with until he can climb a little higher on the totem pole in terms of disposable income and wave goodbye to the sorry establishment.

He’s got a whole speech planned for when that happens. It’s going to be a hell of a thing.

But it’s not going to be _any_ thing until he has worked there at least a couple more months, and stuck to his spending ban - but, _fuck_ , now he needs new jeans and those were fucking _tailored_.

Lying on the couch is as good a place as any to wallow, Harry thinks. And, to be perfectly honest, feeling sorry for himself for a couple of hours helped. Not in any kind of functional, rational way, of course not. But in an emotional way.

There’s some sort of unsung value to burying himself in a sofa and sweating his worries into a blanket he’s not sure he can even physically wash.

The other thing, the other specific thing, that he knows will help is sat in a jar on his bookshelf in his bedroom. That thing he paid for well before his holiday - he’s always been well stocked, especially since starting uni - and the backlog meant that he at least hadn’t had to sacrifice this one small pleasure in his fight for financial flexibility.

The only thing he has to do now, he knows, is get off the couch and get it. Of course, he’ll have to roll it as well but he’s always been good at that. It’s the getting off the couch thing that’s proving a problem.

Ten minute later, he has still not moved. His mind has drifted a little - _I could use the force - you idiot to use the force you have to move your arms - do you have to move your arms? what if I’m the special sort of Jedi who just needs to use their mind? - ooh, like Matilda! -_ when Niall pushes the door open and stomps inside.

“Hey,” he says. He doesn’t bat an eye when he spots Harry in his current position.

“Lo,” Harry says.

“You thinking about smoking?” Niall asks.

“Yeah,” Harry says.

Niall drops down onto the smaller one seat couch, kicks the recliner back and settles his arms behind his head. “Stuff’s in your room, right?”

“Yeah,” Harry says again.

There’s a couple of moments of silence that follow. Harry’s too busy gazing at his bedroom door and wandering vaguely about the functionality of Harry Potter spells to pay too much attention to Niall, but there’s something about the quiet that feels a little significant. Considered, kind of.

“How was work?” Niall finally says.

Harry takes a deep breath and says dramatically, “I have lived a _lot_ of weeks, you know.”

“Bad, then.”

“You might even say I have lived _several_ weeks,” Harry goes on. He pauses for a moment, because ‘several’ had felt bigger than ‘a lot’ in his head but out loud sounded much, much smaller. “A. Lot.”

“You sure you haven’t lit up already, mate?” Niall asks.

Harry lifts his head as much as he can, which is really only a couple of centimetres before his neck begins to cramp.

“No,” he says imperiously. He drops his head back down to the couch. “I wish.”

“Your pot is literally two metres away,” Niall says.

“It’s too far,” Harry says.

“You’re fucking ridiculous, you are.” There’s another little pause, and then Niall swears again and gets to his feet. He walks to Harry’s room, on the way saying, “Only because you have clearly had a fucked day, I am doing this. Do you understand, Styles? I am not your beck and call boy, you cannot just pout at me and get me to do whatever you want. I want to make that abundantly clear. You better fucking share your shit, as well.”

By the time he is finished, he is also back in the room with Harry’s pot jar in hand.

Harry swings himself into an upright position eagerly and makes a grabby hand motion.

Niall scowls and passes it over, but not before pulling out the little green pipe that’s supposed to look like Link from Zelda.

“Give us when you’re done,” he says.

Okay, Harry thinks as he pulls out his papers and gets to rolling. At least he’s lived enough weeks to have made a pretty radical best friend.

.

Two hours later and Harry is hungry as fuck.

Niall throws a fist up in the air, almost triumphantly. “I’m hungry as fuck too!”

Harry sits up - back straight, eyes wide. “Oh, my god,” he says. “Niall, I think you just read my mind.”

Niall blinks. “Did I?”

“Yeah,” Harry nods. “I was _literally_ just thinking about food.”

Niall blinks again. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I know that.”

Gaping, Harry says, “ _How?_ ”

Niall shrugs. “Cause you said so.”

“I what?”

“You said you were hungry.”

Harry’s shoulders slump. “I did?”

To his credit, Niall does think about it for a moment before he says, “Yeah, mate.” Then, because he’s also an asshole, he starts to laugh.

Harry lets himself fall back into the couch, dropping his chin to his chest and pouting. He was really quite certain he hadn’t said that out loud.

“Do you know what I read,” Harry says loudly, over Niall’s incessant giggling. “I don’t know where I read it, but I read that humans have telepathic abilities. Like low level ones, same and dogs and cats and shit.”

Niall sobers quickly. “I’ll believe it,” he nods.  

“The shit my cat can do, man,” Harry says. His mum’s cat, is what he means. “Freaks me out.”

Niall nods. “No, yeah, definitely,” he says quickly. “My dog can like full see the future.”

Harry has never met Niall’s dog. Or, really Niall’s parent’s dog. But he’s seen picture, heaps, from Niall’s photos on his phone and his family’s facebook. Harry’s friends with Niall’s mum, Niall’s dad _and_ Niall’s brother on facebook.

He would like to be friends with Niall’s dog on facebook, and in real life actually. He probably won’t get the chance, not unless he can trick Niall into taking him with him back to Ireland on his next trip. He usually only ever goes once or twice a year, and he went like two months ago which means the next trip is _at least_ four months away, which means Harry won’t even have the chance of meeting the puppy for four more months.

His name is Bluebell.

Harry’s eyes start to well up thinking about it, so he takes a big hasty sniff and sits up again. “Let’s go to McDonalds,” he says.

Niall looks elated. “Yeah, sick one!” he says. “I was just thinking about food!”

Harry, because he is a good and kind friend who desperately wants to meet Bluebell one day, giggles but doesn’t say anything.

.

There is an angel working at McDonalds.

An angel with his back to the door, his shirt a bit untucked and a hint of a bum (lower back?) tattoo peeking out the top of his pants.

When Harry walks in the door and sees this, his knees buckle a little. He’s sure it’s unrelated. He corrects himself fairly quickly, wobbling around for just a moment and stabilizing himself on the door handle.

“I was reading an article yesterday that they’ve got a new beef burger,” Niall is saying.

His voice is apparently loud enough to catch the angel’s attention, and he spins around. His eyes - blue, blue, so very, very _blue -_ go wide and round for a moment, before they narrow suspiciously.

“Apparently it’s that wagyu stuff, but I don’t actually know what that is and I was reading another article that says the wagyu thing is total bogus so who really knows…”

Harry’s brain clicks as Niall’s words catch up with him.

“You have read _two_ articles on McDonalds beef?”

Niall scoffs. “Not just McDonalds beef, mate. All beef. This is worldwide, it’s _global._ ”

They get to the counter then, bumping into it a little because they’d both been a little focused on other things. Harry is caught between staring incredulous at Niall, and staring incredulously at the blue-eyed boy. Somehow they are two very different stares.

The boy has both his palms on his side of the counter, his arms straight and his elbows locked. It pushes his shoulders up a little, and Harry’s eye catches on the curve of his collarbone - peeking sharp out from behind the boy’s collar.

“Hi, welcome to McDonalds.” He sounds bored, but he doesn’t look it. There’s something wicked in his eye, like a little grin. “My name is Louis and I will be your server today. What can I get you?”

Niall swings an elbow onto the counter and leans forward conspiratorially.

“What’s the story with the new beef burger?” He asks.

The boy blinks at him.

Niall goes on.

“I’m talking customer feedback, what’s the go, what the general feeling? Reviews, questions, queries.”

Harry is pretty sure that Niall is just saying words he remembers now, but before he can step in and save this lovely boy from his friend’s onslaught, another boy steps out from the back. He’s a bit taller than the other, and a bit broader across the shoulders. He’s wearing the McDonalds cap - and the red and yellow is almost a little too much for Harry to look at.

He wants one of those, he thinks. He could wear it to Glastonbury.

He’s also wearing a name tag. Harry hadn’t thought to look for a nametag.

“Hi there,” the new boy named Liam says. “Welcome to McDonalds. What can I get for you today?”

Harry orders as many chicken nuggets as he can get for the tenner he’s got in his pocket, and a bottle of coke. Liam diligently advises him that they’ve got to cook a new batch so it might be a three to five minute wait, so Harry just nods and says

“Oh, of course, yes, sure, take your time, no rush.” It might be one or two few many placations, but it does the trick.

Liam smiles sunnily at him and disappears out back.

Niall has finished ordering by now, which feels like a miracle in and of itself. He’s moved away a little, closer to the automated order machines that Harry has only just noticed. It’s probably better they spoke to humans anyway, since Harry’s having a bit of trouble focusing on words right now and speaking is far, far easier.

The lovely boy is still standing at his computer, possibly watching Harry but possibly just staring off at nothing. Harry can’t quite tell.

He doesn’t move to stand near Niall though. He doesn’t feel like it. Not when this lovely boy is standing so close, with his beautiful eyes and his surely beautiful bum tattoo. Harry watches him for a moment, considering all the things he could possibly say that won’t sound stupid and might even start some sort of actual conversation.

He’s got a tentative starter line forming in his head - ‘ _did you know slugs have four noses?’_ \- when the boy saves him the trouble.

“You right?” he says, by way of greeting.

Harry blinks. “Yeah, why?”

There’s a pause. A tiny little furrow appears at his brow, but the corners of his eyes also crinkle. It’s a little confusing.

“I meant like, hey,” he says.

There is another pause, although this one is filled with a very distinctive snort from Niall’s direction.

“Ah,” Harry says.

“Yeah,” the boy says.

“Hey,” Harry says.

Niall laughs again.

The boy’s face is definitely more smiley now. He shifts against the bench, folding his arms across his front and jutting his hip out so that he can lean that way. He looks Harry up and down, slowly, obviously, and everywhere his eyes touch tingles.

“What’s brings you to our McDonalds at,” he glances at the clock on the wall, “three in the morning?”

Harry shrugs, tries to look nonchalant.

“Just smoked some joints,” he says. People who talk about drugs always look cooler when they pretend they talk about drugs all the time. “What about you?”

The boy stares at him.

Niall coughs.

“I work here,” the boy says.

Harry swallows. “Oh yeah.”

Niall arrives at his side in the next second, a bit pink in the face and biting his lip in a way that suggests he hovers on the precipice of another giggling fit. He hooks his arm around Harry’s elbow and tugs softly.

“We’re going to leave you alone now,” Niall tells the boy.

He tugs Harry away and back to their little corner. Harry goes willingly, shamefaced and wishing he’d stuck to his original conversation starter. He shoves his hands deep in his pockets and pouts at Niall. He’d quite like to be back in his blanket, actually.

His brain spins in that soft and gentle way it always does when he’s smoked a little, the kind of way that lets him know he’s said something stupid but can’t quite figure out how to fix it. Probably best not to try, just in case he makes it worse.

“Bro, look at this dog.” Niall lifts his phone up and waves it in front of Harry’s face, showing him a very cute picture of a dog wearing a coat that says ‘BIG SEXY’. “I’m tagging you.”

He feels his phone buzz in his pocket as Niall does exactly that, but he doesn’t pull it out to check. He needs to wallow a moment or two longer.

“101 and 102?”

They both look back to the counter to see the lovely boy standing there with a brown paper bag in each hand. His eyebrows are raised expectantly and he is, against all expectations, smiling.

They head over a take the bags, Harry slightly more apprehensive than Niall - who just looks honestly elated to finally meet this beef burger.

“Thanks,” Harry says, as he takes his bag gingerly.

“Oh,” the boy says. “You’re one-oh-two?”

Harry blinks.

He looks down to his bag. It says 102. With his free hand, he dives into his left pocket and pulls out the receipt. It also says 102.

“Yep,” he says.

“Oh,” the boy says again. “I thought you were one-oh-one.”

“Nope,” Niall says. “That’s me!”

He’s got his bag open already, scrunched up properly at the bottom so that he can get his hands on that burger. He takes a massive bite and then, with his mouth full, groans loud as hell.

“Oh, my god, that’s good,” he says.

The boy smiles, his smile faded just a teeny, tiny little bit.

“Glad to hear it,” he says. Then he looks to Harry, grins - this one somehow different to the last - and says, “Well, have a good night!”

Something in Harry wants to linger, wait just a little bit longer to see if the boys smile will take on it’s previous shine. But Niall takes the crook of Harry arm again and pulls him away, directly him gently towards the door.

.

“I was reading this list of animal facts,” Harry tells Niall as they wander back to their apartment. “And get this, one said that elephants are the only animal that can’t jump.”

Niall thinks for a moment, frowning. Then he says, “What about whales?”

“That’s what I thought!” Harry says, immediately validated. “Whales can’t jump, they don’t have knees!”

Niall hums. “I suppose they could jump out of the ocean. You know, when they do the… the jumpy thing.”

Harry scowls. “I would call that more of a leap.”

“Oh, yeah, course.”

“Okay, well, what about dugongs?”

“Aw, yeah, those are sick!”

Harry nods hurriedly. “They _are_ sick. They _also_ don’t have knees. And they don’t leap _or_ jump.”

“Who wrote the list?” Niall asks.

“What list?”

Niall rolls his eyes. “The animal list, the one you were reading.”

Harry thinks for a very long while. He’ll be able to find the list easy, because it was the first link he’d clicked when he’d googled ‘weird animal facts’ this morning when he was on the loo. He doesn’t super want to tell Niall that he googled it though. Facts aren’t nearly as cool when people know you searched them out.

“I don’t know,” he says.

“You should try and find it again. Write to the author or something, see why they left the dugong off the list, because I think that’s bogus - oh hey!”

Niall stops in his tracks. Harry doesn’t notice straight away and keep walking a couple of paces. That puts him a few metres away from Niall when he does realize. He spins around and frowns. Niall is staring at his McDonalds bag. It’s been empty for about ten minutes - Niall had gulped that burger down in record time - but he’s kept it in his hand until they could find a bin.

“What?” Harry asks.

“That bloke wrote me a message.”

Something very, very unhappy sits itself squarely in Harry’s gut.

“What?” he says again.

“That guy, the short fella,” Niall says. Harry gapes on the lovely boy’s behalf. “I think he wrote a note on my McDonalds bag.”

Harry lifts his own bag up. He’d balled it up in his hands once he’d finished with his nuggets, but he unwraps it now, carefully, keeping an eye out for any little messages.

Nothing.

Suddenly incredibly grumpy, Harry folds his arms across his front.

“Well?” he says. “What does it say?”

Niall is still frowning down at whatever message he’s found. “He’s called me Stretch.”

“He’s called you what?”

“Stretch,” Niall says again.

“Oh,” Harry says. “Weird.”

“You’re taller than me,” Niall says, squinting at the bag.

Harry is still reeling from his abrupt change of mood. He scowls down at his feet and shrugs. “Yeah,” he says. “What else is there?”

“He’s given me his number.”

God, Harry thinks, tonight fucking sucks. He should have never left his bed today, he should never have gone to work, or left his blanket fort, or -

“Harry,” Niall says. “Harry, I think this is for you.”

\- Oh.

_Oh._

“He said he thought you had my number, remember?” Niall says, entirely and understandable unaware of the standstill in Harry’s brain right now. “He said he thought you were one-oh-one. Harry this is for you.”

He thrusts the bag out in front of him, for Harry.

Harry takes a deep breath.

_hey stretch, call me if you want to share next time x_

There's a number underneath.

“Niall,” he says. “Niall, there’s an x there.”

“Sure is, buddy.”

“That’s a kiss.”

“Mhmmm.”

Harry, caught up in the moment, clutches the brown bag to his heart. He takes a huge, deep breath and looks up to the sky.

“Niall,” he says. “This week is the _best.”_

.

 

**Author's Note:**

> thx for reading fronds, xx.
> 
> find me on [tumblr](http://bottomlinsons.tumblr.com) and come talk to me about harry's suits or missing louis' face


End file.
